Forge ahead: Outram home built around 19th-century

An architectural designer and his wife bought this old smithy and decided to keep the existing forge. Words by Sue Allison, photographs by Jane Ussher.

Some people have the strangest things in their houses, but not many can boast an entire 19th-century blacksmith’s shop.

When an architectural designer and his wife bought this property in Outram, near Dunedin, they opted not to renovate or demolish the existing forge but to encapsulate it.

Incorporating an old smithy into a contemporary home presented a few challenges, especially as the complex was also to house the owner’s office.

‘‘I angsted a lot over the style and on how to build a new part to go with the old,’’ he says.

The forge’s position on a corner section gave them the opportunity to create a pavilion-style complex with two distinct aspects. From the main street, the house looks like a modern townhouse. Around the corner, the blacksmith shop, which fronts the side street, is slotted between the house and office.

The owners chose cedar cladding as a near-match to the rustic weatherboard, and black long-run steel for the roof. Inside, the back and one side wall have been replaced with glass so the smithy can be viewed from the office foyer, the long hallway connecting the business to the house and the living area.

But this is no museum exhibit: the glass bifold doors of the kitchen open into the forge, essentially turning it into an internal courtyard that’s often used for entertaining.

Outram was developed at the ferry crossing on the banks of the Taieri River.

Horsemen, coaches and laden drays lumbered through on the long trek to the goldfields. The smithy was an integral part of the town and dates back to the 1880s, but was still operating a century later.

It wasn’t viable to restore the whole complex, so the couple took down the outbuildings and stables but not before everything had been recorded for posterity. Archaeologists followed the digger, mostly finding post-1900 knickknacks like old toothbrushes, tubs of paint and masses of old bottles.

The new home is deliberately simple in style and furnishings. The living room is tent-like with its pitched roof and views of the stars through the glassed gable ends at night; forge-friendly colours of sepia and black with brick-red highlights have been used throughout.

The forge sits at the heart of the new building, with its hardwood